Indie Spotlight: ‘Made in Mosjøen’ Is Dark, Unpredictable, And Unique

We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now.  Read previous installments here. 

In today’s column, in order to uncover the weirdest web series in recent memory, we’re traveling to Norway. There, we find Made in Mosjøen, a bizarre and enticing offering from creator Aleksander Nordaas.

Normally, this is the point of the review where I would describe what the series is about, but with Made in Mosjøen, that isn’t so simple. All I can say is that it features dark lighting, gratuitous nudity, mysterious and dangerous characters, and a casual disregard for the fourth wall–and that’s just in the first episode alone.

As Made in Mosjøen carries on, it begins to take a more concrete shape, though Nordaas makes sure to carry a strange and eerie sensibility from episode to episode. At some points, Made in Mosjøen almost feels like an anthology series, with each installment introducing us to uncommon scenarios and characters who defy description. The closest comparison I can make (and several people in the series’ comment section have made the same leap) is to the TV series Twin Peaks, though I think it’s more fair to say that Made in Mosjøen defies comparison.

This isn’t a series for everyone, but if you can handle it, you’ll probably like it quite a bit. All 19 of its episodes can be viewed on its official YouTube channel.

OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT

• 10percento. This 100-episode offering from Italy is billed as the first “lesbian web series” on Instagram.
• Anne and Jake. An eccentric scientist who loves Back to the Future encounters a 19th-century English woman.
• Superfreaks. This is the latest addition to the small-but-exciting web series subgenre of superhero office comedies.
• Til Lease Do Us Part. Friends, lovers, exes, and enemies all collide in a small, collegiate apartment.

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